Inside: Ted Hughes on Sylvia Plath, the Hitch’s last interview, Edward Docx on the pandemic, Bryan Magee’s pensées, Kate Mossman, Kate Atkinson’s darktime, Hugh Grant and John Gray.
I once dreamed the apocalypse was approaching so the scientists flooded the sky with chemicals to partially block sunlight. Unfortunately the chemicals combined in unforeseen ways that completely blocked out the sun. In a panic the US launched a rocket to punch through the darkness. It succeeded as a hole opened up letting in the life supporting sunlight. But equally as quickly the hole snapped shut and we were left in the cold blackness. Was this a dream or a nightmare?
I once dreamed that Russian scientists had drilled a hole in the arctic but then had to leave because winter had arrived in a vicious way. The hole covered back up but come springtime, with the thaw, it became apparent anon & some viscous black matter of sorts, that had been liberated by the a/m after aeons of slumber, began escaping its mouth & snaked itself up to the firmament from where it gradually spread & solidified until just a wee lil opening remained over South-Africa in the Transvaal somewhere. It didn’t take long though for even that last sliver of light to be denied the panicked living & then the whole world plunged into an opaque claustrophobic darkness.
Always a gem somewhere in your collections!
On Kate Atkinson, Dark Time
I once dreamed the apocalypse was approaching so the scientists flooded the sky with chemicals to partially block sunlight. Unfortunately the chemicals combined in unforeseen ways that completely blocked out the sun. In a panic the US launched a rocket to punch through the darkness. It succeeded as a hole opened up letting in the life supporting sunlight. But equally as quickly the hole snapped shut and we were left in the cold blackness. Was this a dream or a nightmare?
I once dreamed that Russian scientists had drilled a hole in the arctic but then had to leave because winter had arrived in a vicious way. The hole covered back up but come springtime, with the thaw, it became apparent anon & some viscous black matter of sorts, that had been liberated by the a/m after aeons of slumber, began escaping its mouth & snaked itself up to the firmament from where it gradually spread & solidified until just a wee lil opening remained over South-Africa in the Transvaal somewhere. It didn’t take long though for even that last sliver of light to be denied the panicked living & then the whole world plunged into an opaque claustrophobic darkness.
Peeps, the planet over, squealed in terror…